[GeneV]

.....

so communism would work fine with an army of saints running it........

.

Any system would work fine under those conditions.

[shooz]

Are you asking for a working definition of human nature? Our essence/consciousness?
Much research is being done on it's biological origins.
Esoteric stuff.
What they will do with the results, is the stuff of science fiction.
What they will with it in reality, remains to be seen.

I will postulate that at our core is a need to be entertained.
To use our senses for this purpose.

We are just beginning to understand this.
When a child over excites themselves we give them a time out.
In the old days, they got the crap beat out of them. That wasn't so effective.

It's why when we find someone entertaining themselves in ways negative to society we limit their sensory input.
We put them in isolation (jails) as a form of punishment/torture.
Or end their lives.

So, as creatures, we strive for sensory input that entertains us.
To get our endorphins flowing.
There are more, such as dopamine.
Other brain chemicals are there to limit this.
When that goes out of balance, we generally consider those people insane.

It's also believed that our biota can play role as well.
There is current research on it's role in depression, and obesity.
That's just what I know of.
Cutting edge stuff.

The real question is, how this will be applied to us in our political future.
Or whether we can figure out how to apply it.


We are entertained in different ways than we were 100 years ago.
But we are still entertained........................................................................

[deejjjaaaa]

J
Right up to the fall of the Romanovs (1917) they were still debating the wisdom of freeing the serfs.

in some countries there are still debating about negroes

[rparmar]

What have philosophers discovered? Except for the empiricists, just about all else philosophers have claimed to be true is disputed, and remains inconclusive even after millennia of arguments and counterarguments.

No doubt, but that wasn't really the point I was making. Besides, some will dispute anything and not accept any common basis for understanding. And that is simply retrograde ignorance. (I am thinking here, for example, of those who deny evolution outright because it's a "theory". My first question to those people is whether they ever board an aircraft, given that it is only a theory of flight that keeps them aloft.)

I think what I am saying is that philosophy (and science) has indeed made progress, though many deny it out of simple ignorance of the arguments that have gone before. (I am ignorant in many areas and only hope I have the presence of mind not to make pronouncements about them!)

A great many (if not all) of the arguments in favour of "capitalism" (first we must define it!) are of this nature. They can easily be shown to be bunk but they get trotted out each time anyway.

Regarding solipsism, as Jussi seems to be pointing out, there is no possible way to escape some variety of it since all experience is “inner.” The information reaching the mind through the senses may come from “out there,” but we nonetheless experience the entire universe only inside our own minds.

I take your point.

He is not saying the universe exists solely in the mind; but rather, since all experience is inner anyway, why not consider the possibility of experiencing one’s own consciousness as a source of information?

Sure, but the term "information" is misused here. There can be no information without a communication channel and if we are communing only with ourself no communication is occurring by definition. Then again, I have read pretty good arguments against the ability to communicate information in any form. Since we are all merely interpreting sensory data we have no direct way to affect each other.

But all of this is by the way. If we are considering politics then we are considering social systems. For this we must assume there is valuable content "out there" somewhere, or else we have no topic to discuss.

Consider water. If we were to assume the essence of water is H2O, how can water exist without its H2O essence? You might argue that even if there is an essence, all that matters is that water exists, and how we can make use of it in various pragmatic pursuits.

I think you are misunderstanding "essence" -- it is a metaphysical construct, not something mechanical like the chemical formula.

The teacher could not have made the students into anything she wanted, they are all limited and given potential by the nature of consciousness

Their limitations are those of class, wealth and social standing. There is absolutely nothing innate in them that makes them any different from you or I. After reducing everything to biology I wonder what is left of any interest?

Have you seen the "Dog Whisperer"? He assumes certain things about the nature of the dog, and then with an incredible success rate demonstrates over and over that getting a dog in line with his nature works to everyone’s benefit.

Is that a television programme? As a rule I don't watch TV. But I have met real dog trainers including one odd French chap I did a performance with -- he called himself a "whisperer" I believe. Though the results are fascinating, their craft is mechanical and straightforward, simple conditioning. Understand more about the dog and get it to do what you want. That is not the basis for any sort of political system I want to be part of.

P.S. Good discussion, even if I feel I am losing the plot a little.

[Nesster]

Regarding solipsism, as Jussi seems to be pointing out, there is no possible way to escape some variety of it since all experience is “inner.” The information reaching the mind through the senses may come from “out there,” but we nonetheless experience the entire universe only inside our own minds.


I can’t agree with Sartre on this because I don’t see any possible way to separate essence and existence, and therefore that one can be discounted in favor of the other.

It seems to me that every step deeper we’ve seen into the underlying basis of reality has led to greater understanding of reality's more superficial aspects. While it is easy to admit that for physics and chemistry, some find it impossible to admit for themselves (as consciousness).

Why then has Sartre settled on existence alone? I’d suggest it is because it was all he knew. Just like a world described by the colorblind doesn’t include color, a philosophy by someone unaware of his own essence will lack that feature.

Les, try interpreting what Sartre says from the point of view of a separated consciousness. Which in fact you say in your last sentence. Never mind

Just for fun, if I were to analyze part of that failure using my little nature model, I’d say one reason (among many) things didn’t work is because the communist model does not fit two of the most basic human needs.

My hypothesis in the earlier post was that a human being is “one” with all other life at the deepest, most essential level, but a human being is also an evolving individual (evolving as consciousness).

A foundational aspect of any human organization design therefore must at least (i.e., not only) accommodate and further BOTH oneness and the individual. Marx seemed to think people would be motivated to sacrifice individual development for the whole. But if our makeup is such that we actually need individualness to thrive, then any system based on negating individuality is bound to fail.

Likewise, a system that overemphasizes individual freedom, acquisition, furtherance etc., and possibly even stifling oneness efforts (Tea Party comes to mind), that too cannot succeed in the long run because it doesn’t match human make up.*

Basically I am suggesting that the lack of self-understanding and inner development is having far more practical consequences on our society than we realize.

Another way of looking at this: humans did not evolve from solitary animals, nor from herd animals, nor from colony animals. We evolved from pack animals. Much of our behavior and world view stems from the tensions inherent in pack life: the various pecking orders, the requirement of being individual while at the same time a part of the pack hierarchy.

In a positive sense, pack life supplies comfort, security and grooming. Also positively, there's the friction that can be channeled creatively... and even the good capitalist concept of deferred satisfaction can be traced back to our pack past. In what can be negative, there's group acceptance/rejection, the various levels of aggression and submission required, the fantasies of ruling it all, etc etc.

[rparmar]

“If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generation of creatures, what statement would contain the most information? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis . . . that all things are made of atoms . . .”

An intriguing exercise! I would have to go with the clinamen:

"While the atoms are being carried down in a straight line through the void by their own weight, at quite uncertain times and at uncertain intervals they swerve slightly out of their course — just enough for one to be able to say that there has been an alteration in their movement. For if they had not this characteristic of moving out of the direct line, they would all fall downwards like drops of rain through the depths of the void; no collision would take place, no one atom would strike upon another; and so nature would never have produced anything at all."
-- Lucretius, De Rerum Natura 2.216-93

[Nesster]

Sure, but the term "information" is misused here. There can be no information without a communication channel and if we are communing only with ourself no communication is occurring by definition.

For a moment, take the self - and therefore solipsism - out of the equation. Consider consciousness as a localized instance of It All (the Universe, or Cosmos, pick you term) being self aware.

What is it that restricts this consciousness to imputs on only the human scale? A way to look at science is that this self-aware universe is poking at its own navel, at one point being self-aware on an atomic level, then later on a sub atomic quantum level, and maybe on a string level... or on the biological level... etc etc.

There's no reason why 'innner' exploration, when rigorously done, won't reveal similar information about existence - its own make-up - as 'external' exploration does.

Or, we may argue about the relative merits, both analog and digital get you there in photography and recorded music. I like to say that pure rigorous empirical materialism results in the same conclusion as pure rigorous empirical mysticism.

[rparmar]

For a moment, take the self - and therefore solipsism - out of the equation. Consider consciousness as a localized instance of It All (the Universe, or Cosmos, pick you term) being self aware.

That is an enormous assumption that I will not make. Mostly because there is absolutely no evidence for it.

Self-awareness is a rare trait that occurs only in autopoietic systems of a certain level of self-interaction.

"I am the observed relation between myself and observing myself."
-- Heinz von Foerster, 1974

[Nesster]

Yes, but how are we different, or separate, from the universe? Are we made of something different? Is biology made of something different than other chemicals? Sure there are emergent properties.... but it's all the same stuff.
"We are stardust, we are golden, We are billion year old carbon" - Joni Mitchell, 1969

[rparmar]

Yes, but how are we different, or separate, from the universe? Are we made of something different? Is biology made of something different than other chemicals? Sure there are emergent properties.... but it's all the same stuff.

It's all about the emergent properties.

As a counter-example, develop a working political system for soot and diamonds.

[wildman]

I don't think that revolutionary communism has a
very good record so far.

You will get no argument from me. Historical Communism failed and
deserved to fail. It was truly "The God that Failed"
The God that Failed - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Speaking of that we have Greenspan's God that failed also -
Greenspan Concedes Error on Regulation - NYTimes.com

Another, more native revolution is Daniel Ortega's
revolution in Nicaragua. Now, he is worth half a billion dollars, his
country is largely in abject poverty, and he runs the country to benefit
his own investments.

This, roughly, makes my point:

Before Ortega - a backward oligarchic banana republic where the poor
live in abject poverty.

After Ortega - a backward oligarchic banana republic where the poor
live in abject poverty.

Wasn't this outcome entirely predictable given the social, cultural, economic
and industrial development of Nicaragua?

The failure of states runs much deeper than dogma.
Would Haiti be the basket case it is if it would have been settled and run
by the Swiss for instance?

I really don't know.

[wildman]

Those centuries of rationalist bickering seemed
irrelevant as the suspicion grew that only through experience do we
acquire knowledge, and then finally rendered obsolete as empirical
epistemology proved itself effective again and again.

Where do we go for empirical evidence that we should or should not have
dropped the A bomb on Hiroshima?

why not consider the possibility of experiencing
one’s own consciousness as a source of information?

Sure why not? I do it all the time when I'm out in the woods. So far as
I understand what you are saying you are talking about mysticism. A
perfectly legitimate way of knowing among others.

any system based on negating individuality is
bound to fail.

Yes. You can't create a happy community out of unhappy individuals.

Basically I am suggesting that the lack of
self-understanding and inner development is having far more practical
consequences on our society than we realize.

No argument from me. The problem is how an individual working 60 mind
numbing hours a week at a sewing machine in some Asian sweat shop is able
to pursue the luxury of "self-understanding and inner development" in the
first place.

[GeneV]

You will get no argument from me. Historical Communism failed and
deserved to fail. It was truly "The God that Failed"
The God that Failed - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Speaking of that we have Greenspan's God that failed also -
Greenspan Concedes Error on Regulation - NYTimes.com



This, roughly, makes my point:

Before Ortega - a backward oligarchic banana republic where the poor
live in abject poverty.

After Ortega - a backward oligarchic banana republic where the poor
live in abject poverty.

Wasn't this outcome entirely predictable given the social, cultural, economic
and industrial development of Nicaragua?

The failure of states runs much deeper than dogma.
Would Haiti be the basket case it is if it would have been settled and run
by the Swiss for instance?

I really don't know.

Since I can't think of any society--whether the advanced industrial society of East Germany or the agrarian poverty holes elsewhere--where communism has produced anything other than a dictatorship of an impoverished society, it is very hard to say that the thesis has been proven. The only communist society that has progressed is China, and it is hardly a society that Marx would applaud, today.

[wildman]

I think you are misunderstanding "essence" -- it is a metaphysical construct, not something mechanical like the chemical formula.

Hasn't that been well understood since 1964 when Gen. Jack D. Ripper declared that essence was defined as our "precious bodily fluids"?
Or perhaps I'm confusing him with another eminent philosopher.

[wildman]

Since I can't think of any society--whether the advanced industrial society of East Germany or the agrarian poverty holes elsewhere--where communism has produced anything other than a dictatorship of an impoverished society, it is very hard to say that the thesis has been proven. The only communist society that has progressed is China, and it is hardly a society that Marx would applaud, today.

Just a thought:

Communism tended to take hold in precisely those societies where anything looked better than what they had?
Why in the hell would a Dane want to embrace communism?
East Germany being the exception being a prize of war of a communist state.